Proverb
by Shelbie's Whatchamacallit
Summary: There, but for the Grace of God, and several pints of Guinness, go we.   One-Shot. Bit of a companion piece.


**Proverb**

_Hi all. Clearly, this indicates that I have too much time on my hands. Another Boondock One-shot. Dear lord. Anyway, I believe this is what we call an experiment. I'm basically just toying with my style and trying to work some new stuff in. This is the result. I imagine it's best with the other Boondock stories, but it could probably go pretty well on it's own too. That said, I could really use some opinions on this one. Opinions please? Thanks in advance if you choose to lend your voice. :)_

* * *

Eve Donovan is wearing an old sweatshirt, once red, but faded nearly to brown, the elbows wearing out and one of the pockets that she has her hands tucked in is on the verge of falling off, this, along with the cowboy boots she has on, make her seem like a wholesome farm girl. Her makeup is smeared across her eyelids, some of it ran out from the corner of her eye, where she had rubbed it in her tiredness, her mascara looking clumpy. Her shoulder length hair is piled in a haphazard ponytail loosely tied at the back of her head. She is nothing like the hardened, jaded woman he had been expecting. She's young, polite, and pretty.

Patrick O'Malley's a bachelor. Though not an obvious one. He's neat, dresses like a cop, and keeps his hair buzzed short all the way around. His only indulgence is the long brown trench-coat he wears, nearly year round. Admittedly, he likes it because it makes him feel like the private-eyes in old noir films, which he watched religiously as a kid, but he tells the other detectives its because it has so many pockets.

Duffy and Dolly, two sides of the same coin if he's ever seen them, are both standing and staring through the one-way mirror at her, talking quietly. He tries not to listen, as they'd gotten very secretive since all this "Saints" business started up again. Especially after the third amigo, Greenly, went and got himself shot. He has no doubt the higher-ups are suspicious of the two of them. How high up, and what the suspicions are exactly are things he'd rather not think about. He gives a knock on the doorframe, letting them know he was there. Dolly jumps a bit, but Duffy reins in whatever his reaction had been, turning to look at him.

"O'Malley," He says neutrally.

"So, she's our only witness?"

"Pretty much." Duffy looked pained, though he wasn't sure why. "Or at least, the only one the uniforms could get to talk to them."

"Has she said anything?" He looks in at her, she is bouncing her feet to an off-kilter, silent rhythm, her hands still stuffed into her pockets.

"Nothing useful. Two guys, a lot of guns. She couldn't even tell us whether they looked like the sketches or not."

"Did anyone ask what she was doing in such a sleaze?"

"Yeah. She works there." Dolly rolls his eyes.

"I don't believe that." He says, looking in at her again. Aside from the from the fact that under her sweatshirt and jeans, she is clad in nothing but the silk teddy she had apparently been wearing when the uniform had interviewed her the first time, nothing about her says stripper to him. She stands up suddenly, and walks to the mirror on her side, leaning towards it, and breathes out a cloud of steam onto the glass, drawing a smiley face. She smiles back at it, then knocks lightly on the glass, eyes searching through the mirror, and for a minute, he almost believes she can see them.

"Excuse me? I know someone is back there. Are there anymore questions, or can I go home now?"

"O'Malley," Duffy says suddenly, sounding as if he was just struck by godly inspiration, "You go talk to her."

"Whoa, wait, why me? This is your case. The Saints are your case," He reminds them, annoyed that the second they get a dead end, they pass it off to the new guy. You could count the number of cases he's been on with your fingers. Not that he's a bad cop. He's just…really new. He's only been out of the academy about a year now, and always under the watchful eyes of senior detectives. Or, in Dolly and Duffy's case, not so watchful he supposes. They tend to just let him loose.

"She hasn't given us anything at all to work with," Duffy says, cutting something Dolly had been about to say off with a nod in his direction. "But you're a new face. You're cute. Maybe she'll talk to you."

"Try not to sound like you're flirting with me," He answers, but they know he'll jump on this chance like a dog on a dropped steak. Everybody wants to get in on The Saints case. Everybody wants their name in the papers. And no one understands what silent agreement the three-now-reduced-to-two amigos, as everyone calls them, and the chief made that allows them to stay on the case, when not an inch of headroom had been made in nearly ten years.

He gets two cups of coffee, one for him, one for miss star witness. He makes sure he has cigarettes and a lighter in his pocket, her file as well as the case file tucked under his arm, and the little digital recorder, sitting on the right side of his chest, where his heart beat wouldn't be heard, but everything she says would. They always told him, in the academy, that the best way to get someone to talk was to make them comfortable, make them like you. That good cop bad cop shit was only for the movies. This wasn't a movie.

He steps into the room, and by now, she has made a full circle of the cramped space, back in her chair.

"You're tape-recorder ran out of batteries," She informs, pointing to the old hunk of junk stuck to the bottom of the table. It was only there for show. It was amazing what you could do just by psyching people out. One of the favorite tricks was to turn the old piece of shit off, and a criminal would start spewing his guts while he thought he was safe, all the while, your pocket recorder would be taking everything down. Criminals were dumb pieces of shit these days. O'Malley's almost angry about it. He's always had a vague notion, a dream, that one day he'd face down an arch-nemesis who had done him wrong; he would be the loose cannon detective with only revenge on his mind, and this enemy of his would be smart, but somehow, he'd always manage to figure it out. He'd be a fucking hero cop. But he's changed since those days. Now, he makes himself be happy dragging in the dregs of society who need a paycheck, not a jail cell. The big baddies? The police still can't touch most of them. Really takes the piss out of the job.

"It's okay," He replies to her comment on the recorder, sliding one of the coffees over to her. "We only use that for criminals."

"So, I take it I'm not under suspicion then?"

"No. You're our only talking witness as a matter of fact, Ms. Donovan."

"I didn't see anything." She answers the question too quickly. Or maybe it's his imagination, making him jump the gun. He plasters a smile on his face, ignoring the twinge of suspicion in his gut. His 'Cop Buzz' as it was called by the veterans, was known to jump ahead of him.

"I'm detective Patrick O'Malley." She raises an eyebrow at him, but takes the hand he offers her, barely shaking it.

"I'm surprised you don't have red hair too," She says, taking the coffee almost hesitantly.

"Yeah. I got hell for it all through the academy. Ask anyone, I'm the only one they can call 'Paddy' and not get reprimanded for racism."

"I'm guessing Belfast," She ponders aloud. "You cover most of it up, but you've still got a bit of a lilt in certain words. Sorry. I've lived in an Irish neighborhood for awhile, you learn stuff like that."

"Don't worry. Anyway, you're right. Belfast. Moved here when I was six." She nods, and there is silence. "So then, you're Irish as well?"

"Not by birth," She laughs good-naturedly. "But I guess you could say I've been adopted."

"By the MacManus brothers?" She goes still.

"That's a long ways back."

"You don't think it's weird that they pulled you out of the sex trade nine years ago, then one day, there just happens to be two guys who follow The Saints MO that blow the hell out of the club where you work?" Truthfully, the details on most of that are sketchy. No one knows for sure if that was really her story, but the file says that's the case. Not that Child Services was all that good about record-keeping. It had taken them hours just to find it, buried under the overflowing manila folders in the notorious 'Missing' basket. It was damn depressing. Child Services' bullshit aside, they'd have to just roll with that assumption of her history for now. She doesn't correct him.

"Maybe one of them's in love with me," She suggests, with another laugh. But it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Anyway, I'm sure you've got copycats popping up everywhere. I'm always in deep. Ask any of the other girls. I have knack for attracting very bad men, maybe this time it just happened to be one who packs a gun."

"They could be a copycat group," O'Malley nods, which is a lie. It was too exact. Not a single person without a criminal record had been hit, the ammo, the angles, the pennies, it had all been there. Copycats always overdid it, or missed something. But this had been an almost exact replica of Copley Plaza, of The Prudential, and especially of The Sin Bin. And no one had seen a thing. No one but her. "But that's what we need you to tell us. We need to know if competition is going to be an issue."

She rubs her forehead, and drains the Styrofoam coffee cup. "Like I said. I didn't see anything worth reporting. They were two guys with guns. Ski masks, gloves, the works. Nothing about them was all that distinguishing. Your height, maybe your build? They had coats on, made it kind of hard to tell."

"What kind of coats?"

"I dunno. The wool kind? Peacoats. That's what they're called. But everybody wears them. Especially in winter." She shrugs, and looks despondent. "I'm not helping, am I?"

"You never know. Everything can be helpful in the right context." He makes a show of going through the folders in front of him. "Did they say anything?"

"Fuck. A lot." She taps her feet some more, it's quiet, but he can hear it in the silence of the room. "And they prayed. Or at least, I think that's what they must have been doing."

"Latin?"

"I don't know. At that point, I was booking it for the fucking door. Sorry, but can I ask a favor?"

"What kind?"

"I'm dying for a smoke. Do you happen to-"

He has the pack out for her before she can even finish the sentence. She takes one and he lights it for her.

"I've almost quit, you know? I haven't had a cigarette in three months. But after today…"

"You've got to relieve stress somehow." O'Malley nods sympathetically. It's false sympathy. Truth be told, he hates the idea of smoking, he hates people who do. He doesn't see why you'd want to kill yourself in such a slow and torturous fashion. In his opinion, if you're going to die by your own hand, you might as well just take the fast way out with a bullet in your brain, and not make everyone else suffer through the bad smells. But that was just his opinion. If offering her a cigarette would make her trust him, then he'd deal with the smoke for awhile. He consults the file once again, though he knows exactly what it says by this point. "It says here that you filed an assault charge at the club about a week ago."

"Mhm." She nods, puffing up her cheeks before letting loose an acrid cloud of smoke, holding the cancer stick in her fingers in the most delicate manner he's ever seen. "I didn't really. Another girl did. My boss slapped us around over something retarded. Unfair tips I think. He was pretty drunk."

"Why didn't you?"

"No one's even called Celest about it. The police came by once, asked her a few questions, and then nothing. I knew that's what would happen, so I didn't even bother." She shrugs. "Nobody cares about people like us."

"That's not true."

"Right," She cracks a sarcastic smile, and tilts her head back, staring at the ceiling, "-the big man in the sky is supposed to love all of us, isn't he? You Catholics."

"How do you know I'm Catholic?" She points at his slightly open shirt collar.

"Looks like a rosary to me." She says. O'Malley's hand reaches to pat the beads. She's far too observant for her own good. It's quite scary actually. He entertains a vague thought that she has to know more than she's letting on. She can guess he's a Catholic from only seeing one or two rosary beads, but can't remember anything distinctive about two blokes who shoot the hell out of her place of employment? No. That didn't sit right at all.

"Let's try something else. How much do you remember from your first encounter with the MacManus brothers?"

"Like I said. It was a long time ago," She says, taking a long drag. "I was in a bad way with some nasty people. Or the, 'Sex Trade', as you all are so fond of calling it. They saved me."

O'Malley nods, and looks through the notes some more. She had a case file with Child Services up until she was sixteen, but had dropped off the map for a couple years. Later, she had randomly appeared again, in Boston, under her new surname of Donovan, and due the miracle of dental records, they had been able to attach her to the old file under her new name. However, this still left a good chunk of time where no one knew of her whereabouts, the last person to have taken her for Foster Care found dead in a bar, and the bullets just happened to match some of those from Copley Plaza and the several other incidents tied to The Saints. This led him to believe that the only explanation was that she had been with them. She had been with The Saints for some undetermined amount of time, and who knew what they had filled her head with. For all any of them knew, she was their fucking accomplice. She may have _told _them to hit the club. "But then you turn around and take your current job? Do you think these men were the same people as the ones that shot your foster father?"

"Can I ask _you _something, Detective?" She has become suddenly defensive. He can see it in the way her eyes are nailing him to the wall, the barrier that has gone up is practically palpable.

"Sure. Why not?" He replies, though he is, at this point, rather annoyed. There was no getting a straight answer out of her, that much was apparent.

"What were you doing before The Saints?" Her eyes are unnervingly clear as she asks this question, like a pair of lasers glaring out of her pretty face. He feels like she could burn a hole in him if she tried. He hates the feeling. It was supposed to be the other way around. He thinks for a moment, not sure why he does, and he answers her, feeling strangely compelled.

"I was going to college," He says. Going to college and trying to decide what the hell he wanted to do with himself. At some point, he had come across "Dirty Harry", and had fancied himself as becoming the next Callahan, cleaning up the city with a sweeping, iron-fist of justice, constantly being yelled at by his superiors, though they would keep him, because they would know he was the only thing standing between them and total criminal-domination. Needless to say, he'd gone through the motions, graduated with flying colors, and hoofed through the Police Academy with almost no significant effort. As for that sweeping bit? Still not happening. He hasn't even had to pull his gun in the year he's been with the Boston PD. He doesn't tell her this though. He has enough sense not to say more than he needs to.

"Yeah? Well, I was being raped at least once a day. Nothing new though, like I said, no one really cares about people like me. They would just pack me up and move me somewhere else, someone else would start fucking me, and it would start all over again. By the time I got to Boston, I was so far past caring, I was actually hoping to get an STD so they'd leave me alone. And then, just when I start thinking that I'd rather just die, that nothing in my future could possibly be worth living anymore, I was saved. By the people you lot put in jail as 'mass murderers'." There is no change in her expression as she tells him this story. She stubs the cigarette out on the table, and leaves it there, standing like a lone little soldier. There is no change in her expression when she accuses him of jailing her saviors. She sits back in her chair, her hands tucked in her pockets again.

"And you don't think it's wrong?" O'Malley asks, "You don't think it's wrong for them to take the law into their own hands? Do you think killing people in cold blood will make things better?"

"When was the last time waving your badge in someone's face stopped a killer in his tracks?" She counters, not missing a beat. He tries not to think about it. The fact that he hasn't been on a single murder case. Until now. "People get out of jail," She continues, "-they always do. They just buy themselves a little justice. Sometimes they don't even have to. Sometimes you just let them out. Good behavior or whatever. That's what's wrong with the whole 'justice' idea cops have. Nobody who even tries to rape a child should ever get out of jail."

"But you don't think they should be killed, the way The Saints do?"

"I didn't say that. But I'd never have the guts to pull the trigger. If someone else wants to do it though, good on 'em I suppose."

"Criminals are still people." And oh, was he ever spinning a pack of lies. The Saints did exactly what he'd dreamed of as a kid, and then again later, all through college, only to be stomped out by the police academy. Only they didn't do it behind a badge. He thinks for a moment that some part of him must have always admired them. But that was really something he shouldn't say. Not while Dolly and Duffy were still on the other side of that mirror. Not when he has a career-making opportunity in just getting her to let something slip.

Sadly, she's been leading him around by the short-and-curlies the whole conversation, and at this point, he's starting to catch on. What he can't figure is why.

"You'd lie to protect them, even if it meant going to jail, wouldn't you?"

"I didn't say that either," She shrugs.

O'Malley is quickly running out of questions, and she stares at him with blank eyes, eyes that give nothing away. They have no real proof that the people in the club were the originals. They'd gotten smarter. They never used the same gun twice, the pennies were clean of anything, they picked up their shell casings, blood evidence was always contaminated. But they always left their mark. Some little indicator that led them to believe it was them. This was no exception. But it could still only be copycats. Very, very good copycats. They had no reason to believe that she knew anything more than she's told him. They couldn't keep her in the tank just because his 'gut feeling' told him she knew way more than she was telling them. He reaches into his pocket and flicks the recorder off. The microphone in the room that goes to the other side of the glass has a terribly staticky reception, Dolly and Duffy wouldn't be able to hear him if he keeps his voice low.

"Look," He leans over towards her, his hands flat on the table, "-this is off the record. And there's only one thing I want to know. Why? Why do they do this? You and I both know that was them in there tonight. I don't know if you had anything to do with it, and I won't ask. Just tell me why."

She looks at him with an expression that is perfectly neutral. "There's a reason they're called The Saints," is all she says for a long moment, and the room is so silent, he can hear her soft intake of breath. He is suddenly supremely aware of clock ticking on the wall, behind it's mesh of protective metal caging. "And there's a reason you'll never be able to catch them. Not for real anyway. People believe in them. People need them. There are just enough of us who really believe that God is on their side to make it impossible for it to ever really end. Even if you do lock them up and throw away the key, or sentence them to die because that's what the law says to do, there will always be someone else to step in and fill the shoes. They've set something in motion that no one will ever be able to stop, not until it's really done, really over."

"When is that?" O'Malley asks, before he has really thought about it.

"That's something that's entirely up to the people, isn't it?" She shrugs as he leans back in his chair again, not flipping the recorder back on, and thinking long and hard about what she has said. "It's not about pre-destination, or God, or any higher power. It's all about what the people, criminals or no, decide to do."

Before he can ask her any further questions, the door has been thrown open by a man in a navy suit, his hair sitting around his ears in a well-trimmed style, deep lines set around his mouth. He flashes a badge in O'Malley's face, too quick for him to read anything other than the big, bold FBI in the corner. He shouts and raves and turns the room into a fucking circus, he throws out accusations of the Boston PD ruining an FBI case, saying they could have seriously compromised their investigation by pulling out their informant the way they had. She was an FBI informant. No wonder. Dolly and Duffy are nowhere to be seen. No one is anywhere to be seen, and he can't even get a word in edgewise, to claim that is was The Saints, not the police who had shot up the club. The FBI agent says he's off the case, takes her by the arm, and leads her to the door, telling O'Malley there will be hell to pay for this later.

He is stunned for several long seconds after this, standing in the empty interview room with nothing but the ticking of the clock to distract him. By the time he has started storming towards the door after him, the hallway is empty. Dolly and Duffy have left the other side of the glass. He marches toward the squad room, and rips Duffy out of his chair, where he's been filling in a report.

"What the hell was that?" O'Malley demands, he is probably spitting in Duffy's face, but finds it difficult to give a damn.

"Aren't you supposed to be with the Donovan girl?" Duffy asks, unfazed by the grab for the most part. He's an Irish cop, same as O'Malley. They're really quite the pushy bunch, who always end up dealing with equally pushy, half-way feral drunks. There are a lot of physical altercations in their division.

"Donovan is an FBI informant. She just got her ass walked out of here by a fuckin' FBI agent! Why didn't you warn me I was gonna get shut down?"

"FBI? Nobody's come through here since- Shit!" Duffy breaks from O'Malley, and runs for the interview room he had just left, Dolly right on his heels, and they're both flinging curses all the while.

"What the hell?" O'Malley demands of no one in particular. Why had they left the interview? Why had no one seen this FBI agent come in? They loved to come into the squad room, all fire and brimstone, blowing their hot air to everyone who would listen. It should have been obvious the minute the FBI even set foot in here. And why hadn't anyone known she was a fucking informant?

Wondering, he walks to the window of their fifth-story office, watching the life crawl by below. Dolly is calling for as many uniforms as can be spared to start the search, which wasn't many. That was probably why Dolly and Duffy had been pulled to do paperwork. Then, just by chance, not even knowing how he picked them out of the crowd, he sees her, and the FBI guy who had escorted her out. They're leaving the alley where the fire stairs of the building come out.

O'Malley's Cop Buzz is off the charts. He starts to tell Dolly, but something stops him. They'd never get down there in time. She'll have melted into the crowd by the time anyone gets down there. He curses silently, but can't stop watching her. The agent walks her to the other side of the street, she smiles, they hug briefly in a friendly manner, and talk for a few seconds. From an alley on the other side of the street, two men in peacoats join them. Blue-suit walks away, and she smiles at the newcomers. One blondish, one dark-haired, both in sunglasses. He has a feeling he knows who they are, even from this distance. They don't talk. The blonde one slips an arm around her shoulders, and they start off, in the opposite direction of Blue-suit. She tucks an arm around his waist, and looks like she fucking well belongs there, the other on the opposite side, smoking as he keeps pace with the pair.

They're gone before Dolly and Duffy even head out to look for them. He knows they won't find them. They never do.

God on their side? He didn't know if he believed in God enough to call that an explanation. But they sure knew how to pick their friends.

* * *

That night, Patrick O'Malley returns to his bachelor pad, sits in his chair, and ponders the day over a bottle of Irish Whiskey one of his many cousins had sent him in lieu of a birthday card.

At the same time, half-way across town, Eve Donovan is sitting in the at-this-point-well-known Irish pub, McGinty's. She is placed between the MacManus twins, Dolly and Duffy sitting at the corner of the bar. Over Guinness and whiskey, they're having what is the semi-drunk, less official, swear-filled version of a de-briefing.

"Gotta hand it to you Eve," Duffy says, raising his glass to her, "-you are a fabulous actress."

She nods her head to him, accepting the toast. "I learned from the best," She replies, sipping her beer, "-speaking of which, how did you figure he wasn't going to recognize Smecker?"

"We didn't really. We just hoped he'd be overwhelmed. Smecker was a…little before his time on the force." Dolly shrugs. "And we hoped to hell he didn't realize his badge was nine years expired. He's back in hiding though, so I don't think it'll be a problem."

"S'wha' do ya think o' the new feller, Kit?" Murphy asks, lighting what was probably his fifth cigarette of the evening.

"It's hard to say. I laid the bait, how he takes it is what will tell. I think he'll be on our side though. He's a fan."

"Goody. Anot'er Romeo." Connor rolls his eyes sarcastically.

"C'mon Connor. It's a good thing," Eve chides lightly, smiling. "Means less work for you guys anyway."

"Aye, bu' tha's only if 'e ends up bein' on r'side. Ot'erwise, 'e's jus' one more who wants t'get 'is name in t'papers catchin' t'ever elusive Saints. 'E was goin' after us hardcore."

"Time will tell," Eve says, and they all nod. She then yawns. "Well, I had a long night at work before all this, so I think I'll be heading home to catch a few hours of sleep."

"I'll walk ye," Connor says, ignoring the get-lucky howls from his brother and the two cops. He takes his coat, and helps her with hers, like the proper gentleman his Ma had always tried to raise. Unsuccessfully for the most part.

"Night everyone," Eve calls cheerfully as she and Connor head out, and they wave to her. "That was exciting," She tells Connor, who just nods.

He doesn't like her getting involved. This goes without saying. He was against this idea from the start, he had wanted her to take a night off from Silk before they decided to go blow the heads off the Mafia fucks who had rented the entire building out for a personal party. But he'd been outvoted, everyone telling him it would look more suspicious if she had mysteriously disappeared. That may have been true, but in his humble opinion, this whole test they'd planned for the new detective, who happened to be obsessed with The Saints -which was nothing particularly remarkable- had been taking it too far.

On the other hand, what harm could a new mole in the police force do?

Eve has her arm threaded through his as they walk, and is gazing around Boston like it's the first time she's seen it. "It wasn't an act," She informs him , feeling his eyes on her as they walk. "What I told him was true. I think a lot of people believe in what you're doing, Connor."

"Well, le's 'ope tha' applies to O'Malley as well."

"He seems like a good man. I think he'll go your way."

"My Ma tol' me the lady o' the house's always righ'." This wasn't exactly an answer on his part.

"Your Ma raised you well." Eve smiles.

They take a cab and are at her door. So is O'Malley. He has the glazed look of someone who's had far too much to drink, but the gun in his hand is steady.

"I fuckin' knew it." He slurs slightly as he speaks, jabbing a finger at Connor. He smells like a distillery. Connor reaches into his coat, only to remember they'd ditched their guns in a dumpster between McGinty's and the Police Department. Eve has her .38 in her purse, but by the time either she or Connor could get to it, he could shoot them both and be gone. They freeze. "I fuckin' knew you knew them," Says the drunken O'Malley.

"Detective-" Eve starts, trying to reason with him, though she knows it's a pretty slim shot. She stops, because he has now leveled the gun with her.

"Don't say another word," O'Malley says.

Connor grabs Eve's arm, and swings her around, placing himself firmly between the drunk with the gun and her. O'Malley probably outweighs Connor by ten or twenty pounds, and likely has hand-to-hand combat training as a cop, factor in the gun, and Connor's chances were looking pretty slim. Bluntly, he was saying a prayer of thanks O'Malley was drunk, that evened the field a little. As suddenly as he had raised the gun, O'Malley drops it again. Connor doesn't move.

"I guess you really are the good guys," He says, rubbing a hand over five o'clock shadow in minor despair. "I had myself all talked up into believing you're just fucking vigilantes, off killing for the fun, maybe for the glory. But youd've taken that bullet, wouldn't you?" Connor nods.

"I woulda kicked yer ass too. Y'don fuckin' point a gun a'Evey."

"Gotcha. Sorry. That's all I needed to know." O'Malley puts his gun away.

"What do you mean?" Eve asks, Connor sticks an arm out to stop her from walking around him. Still playing the knight in shining armor. He was so good at it too.

"There's a difference between killing people you _think_ are bad, and killing bad people. Killing bad people usually involves protecting the innocent. Now I know." O'Malley starts off down the street at a drunken shamble, stumbling here and there. At the corner, he stops. "By the way, it was definitely copycats in the club." Eve smiles, she had known he was on their side. He starts shuffling off again.

"Detective, can I call you a cab?" Eve calls after him, worrying despite herself.

"That…could be a good idea." He nods. He walks back to them, Eve heads into the apartment building to call the cab company, and Connor stays outside scrutinizing him.

"I don' like ya." He says plainly. O'Malley shrugs.

"Understandable."

"Y'ever point a gun a' 'er again, I'll kill ye wit' m'bare 'ands."

"Got it," O'Malley nods, and nearly throws himself off balance. Vertigo is a terrible thing. There is no sound but that of a car a few streets away, tires squealing as whoever is driving makes a dangerous turn. Or possibly is on the getaway from some random crime committed. "It's not loaded," he says suddenly.

"Wha'?"

"The gun. It's not loaded. I don't hurt girls."

Connor just nods at him, an easy smile on his face. "I still don' like ye, bu' mebbe y'coul' buy me a pint, an' we'll get on better."

"Done deal, boyo." O'Malley says, sticking out a hand for Connor to shake. He does.


End file.
